These Scars Are Mine
by dont-fear-the-reaper11
Summary: "I initially thought I was about to die, or at least connect with a wall, but Derek didn't even stir. There was an uncharacteristic lack of anger in him at the moment, and although it was a nice deviation from our usual routine, it freaked me the hell out." Where Derek glances behind Stiles' curtain of "I'm fine."


I wrote this a long time ago. Maybe it's just me but these kinds of situations practically keep me up at night. I always wondered what Derek's reaction would be if he ever really witnessed Stiles' pain. Did I mention I wrote this like more than a year ago, before I got into writing?

*1*

I'd never been so uncomfortable in my life. My feet felt like frozen blocks of ice as they held my weight numbly, circles forming from my vision with black beginning to cloud the edges. It was like the air couldn't get into my lungs and my blood just ran superficially through my veins. I was looking away, straining back on the grip holding my arm out, just in case he decided to let go.

Along with the extreme discomfort was fear. Good old, blinding, petrifying, irrational fear. It hung from my eyelashes and carved little patterns into my ribs. That's what it felt like. It oozed from my skin and stained my clothing. But the worst thing was the buzzing in my ears. I wasn't sure if it was from the panic, or maybe the underlying anger of being unable to stop what was happening. Either way, I couldn't bring myself to look up. I was almost certain that as soon as I did, I would either pass out from the lack of oxygen, or say something in bad humour.

The fingers gripping my arm, positioning it in front of me and between us as if on display were probably starting to bruise the skin, and they wouldn't let go. He just held on, for what felt like minutes. At this point, I didn't doubt that the minutes were actually just seconds, but I heard time went more slowly when one struggles for oxygen. The feeling of having a sword crammed down my throat began to lift a little bit, but instead of relieved I was hollow, gutted. Organ-less.

The side of my head prickled with a sort of goose-bumpy sensation, and I knew he'd been staring straight at my eyes the entire time, although they were redirected. The temptation to look up was matched evenly with my desperation to leave. There was no logic in my thought process at that point, only panic. It never occurred to me that it really didn't matter if he saw. He was not responsible for me. We weren't even friends.

All at once the buzzing in my ears stopped, and after the initial relief, I began to question whether I liked the buzzing better. Aside from his hand holding my arm out, I wouldn't have been able to tell Derek was even in the room. His breaths were undetectable and his eyes were deadly. The urge to look up into those eyes finally broke me, and I met them.

It was worse than I expected. They weren't glowing, like I thought they'd be, but his pupils were somewhat blown, making the iris's look darker than their usual pale green. The eye contact was unwavering, and the waves of embarrassment that hit me now showed no sign of slowing. I wasn't sure why I was embarrassed at this, it wasn't like I flaunted it. It was how I dealt with things. It was something good for me. And, might I add, something that was absolutely none of his business.

So why was I even still straining against his grip, holding the glimmering hope of him letting go and me rolling my sweater sleeve back down my arm, so close to my heart? The way he was looking at me, perhaps. If his goal was to break me into a million pieces with that stare, at the same time disguising what he was really thinking, then it was working flawlessly. I could almost feel a nervous bead of sweat form on my head, almost hear it through the silence. Too bad he hadn't left my window open. There'd at least be the relief of birds outside or cars passing by. Silence had never been my friend.

I really tried. I tried to match his glare with an equally cold one, but he never wavered. And yet I did. It felt like the longer we stood there, which was still potentially only for a dozen seconds or so, the softer my glare became and the harsher his became; like he was reading me or something. Pulling silent answers out of me without even asking a thing.

When my eyebrows had practically knit themselves together in the pained grimace my face had somehow transformed to, he let go. A sweet, sweet reprieve of the tremendous stress I was under before. The moment Derek let go, I fisted my sleeve back down around my arm, hiding what had just been dragged into the open. As I tugged the material down, I let my eyes travel over the nasty gashes down the soft, white underside of my forearm, attempting unsuccessfully to convince myself that they weren't very noticeable. That I could pass them off as a spastic hiking expedition.

Right, oh yeah, I couldn't lie anyway. It was infuriating, knowing I couldn't but knowing I had to. And I'd be damned if I didn't at least try to lie.

I couldn't clear my throat in preparation to begin my string of lies before Derek put a hand on either side of my shoulders and guided me over to my bed, pushing a little bit to get me to sit down on the edge. He turned around and dragged the chair from my desk in front of me, taking a seat and rubbing a hand lightly over his mouth. His eyebrows were slightly up as he did this, like he had no idea what to do and it bothered him. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he looked like he was going to talk to me about this._ Possibly cheer me on_, I thought sarcastically.

"You hate yourself that much," he said, rather than asked. I wanted to nod, but was afraid of the implications.

This time when he made eye contact, it was soft. His own eyes moved around slightly, like he was studying my scleras for whiteness. Honestly, I preferred the glare. He was leaning over, elbows resting on top of his knees, as he lined up his hands against each other and folded them. This time, when he looked back up at me, I realized that until now, I'd never known the definition of uncomfortable.

It wasn't even necessarily awkward. It was the kind of uncomfortable where you didn't know what to do with your hands, or in my special case, my face. I didn't know where to look, for how long, and with what expression. Ditto my posture, I couldn't relax it if I tried.

"Are we finished?" I ended up blurting, regretting it so instantly that I wished I didn't say it before the words even formed. My impulses right now were like freight trains, and wall of self-control a piece of paper. You just couldn't stop it with something so flimsy.

I initially thought I was about to die, or at least connect with a wall, but Derek didn't even stir. There was an uncharacteristic lack of anger in him at the moment, and although it was a nice deviation from our usual routine, it freaked me the hell out. Derek's _upset_ was anger. Derek's _in a good mood_, anger. Derek's _sad_, anger. Derek's _scared_, anger. That was his default for everything, so what exactly was he now?

While I was trying to pick his brain apart, he was evidently doing the same to mine. And although I was full of questions about him, he seemed to actually be successful in determining my thought-process. Throughout this whole ordeal, the same question had been bothering me. More than anything else; what was making him sit across from me like this with that sickeningly concerned look painted head to toe? It was such an abstract question to me at the moment that I'd given up on answering it myself almost immediately.

He probably thought that it was his fault. He must've thought that all the werewolf crap bought me a one-way ticket to looney-ville. And as much as I'd be thrilled to agree, I couldn't. That wasn't it. True, it had been a source of unnecessary stress and it complicated things, but none of this had to do with mythological creatures. And especially not the one who sat in front of me. If anything, having Derek around for all of this made it better, something I'd grudgingly admitted to myself recently. If I knew him at all, though, as long as he was convinced this was his fault, he had to be the one to somehow right it.

Of all the times I'd accidentally thought out loud, this couldn't be one of them. I couldn't bring myself to say the words, mostly because I was so afraid of what would happen after I did. Maybe he would go, maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he would coax more out of me. I really didn't want that. So we kind of just sat there looking at each other, a new sort of anxiety churning in my chest. When had my organs returned, anyways?

"It's not-" I finally exclaimed, once again at the mercy of my urges.

"- I know it's not."

_How could he possibly…_ I wondered. There was no way he already knew I would say that. I must've looked doubtful, too, because he added, "I know it's not my fault."

Which made me sit back, internally, flustered or comforted at my only theory being blown out of the water. After all, there was an even more interesting reason for this confrontation.

"When did this start?" He asked bluntly after a pause. I flinched at the words, somehow feeling their effect as they could've been as casual as asking when I started a new job or at a new school. This, unfortunately, was not small-talk.

My first reaction was to lie. Like an old dog in the forest, waiting to die. He was working some kind of voodoo, because I couldn't even do it. There was something absolute about the way he said it, and it made the truth feel like bursting free from within me.

My second, reaction however, aside from being truthful, was anger. This was personal. It was more than personal. And he was prying, although admittedly just into my insignificant little life, which couldn't even count as prying. It was still mine. "Get out," I spat bitterly, standing. I almost forgot to get a little scared at the harshness in my voice. No way would I get away with this if these were normal circumstances.

Derek just looked at me sadly. That made me feel horrible, mostly because I'd never seen him give anyone that look. And here I was, on the other end of it. The longer he observed me in that kind of fashion, the more I felt like I was tumbling down a hill. There was this sick realization that he was actually taking the time to sit down and ask me these things on his own accord, for God knows what reason, like he couldn't stop himself if he tried. What kind of scheme was this?

After glancing at me for a few more moments, he made a noise in his throat, a "Hm" before getting up and walking around me. I watched him with attempted malice, like I was forcing him to leave. The only other thing he said after swinging a leg over my window sill was, "Don't do it again."

I almost yelled after him, wondering what business of his it was, but then I realized how cliché a bedroom murder would be.

_-fin-_


End file.
